former secretary of state condoleezza rice. >> we can't leave kids in failing neighborhood schools. if they have to go to a charter school, get a voucher and go to a private school then we've got to get it done because we cannot afford to leave children behind. it goes to the core of who we are as americans. it is the civil rights issue of our time. >> more of my conversation with secretary rice coming up ahead. also this hour, education secretary arne duncan. new yorkity schools chancellor dennis wolcott and chelsea clinton on how schools in one state are finding solutions. the game change boys win big in hollywood. >> i share this award with mark halperin and john heilemann. just wanted to shout out for mark halperin and john heilemann. >> the hbo mini series based on halperin and heilemann's best seller nabs five awards including julie ann more for her

turn as sarah palin. >> wow. i -- i feel so validated because sarah palin gave me a big thumb's down. good day. i'm andrea mitchell live in new york overlooking the new york public library, site of our education nation summit. all of the top newsmaks and policymakers in the field with us today. first our daily fix, politics, the campaign re-set for mitt romney is under way. romney and paul ryan are intensifying their focus on swing states, romney starting today in colorado before joining paul ryan in ohio where a new poll today has president obama breaking past 50%. joining me now, chris cizilla msnbc contributor and managing editor of host politics.com. this is the biggest edge that the president has had in ohio so far. and what does it mean that the romney/ryan campaign are focusing on ohio as well, the president will be going to toledo all roads leading to ohio later this week? >> that's right. look, andrea, what it means is

history is close to determinative as it relates to republicans, ohio and the presidency, which is no republican presidential candidate, no republican presidential candidate, has been elected president without winning ohio. i think the bus tour in ohio begins tomorrow with mitt romney and paul ryan is a evidence that they are clearly worried. i've talked to lots of people, so much public polling out there, some showing president obama with almost a double-digit lead. i talked to most people on the republican/democratic side who say it's about four or five-point edge for president obama. in their own internal polling. look, that's a great place for president obama to be. remember, he doesn't need ohio to get to 270 electoral votes. it's hard to see, there are ways, but it's hard to see how mitt romney gets to 270 electoral votes without ohio. >> a dispute bubbling up over something that the president said on "60 minutes" with scott pelley describing what happened with the protests in libya as a bump in the road. >> right.

>> mitt romney had a conversation with peter alexander on the road today and this was his pushback about it. >> the president characterized as bumps in the road, the developments in the middle east. we've just had an ambassador assassinated. egypt has elected a muslim brotherhood person as president. iran is on the cusp of having a nuclear capability. we have tumult in syria and pakistan. i don't consider these bumps in the road. i think this is a time for american leadership. >> and jay carney at the white house now responding to that. >> this morning about the line bump in the road is not that it's minimizing the arab spring but it's minimizing the death of -- and violent death of the u.s. ambassador, three others, and -- what -- when he said bump in the road, did he mean not to draw a parallel or not to define

that event in benghazi? >> i appreciate the question, ann, because that assertion is both desperate and offensively. >> -- offensive. >> this, of course, teeing up the fact that the president is heading this way for the un, giving his big speech tomorrow at the u.n., then not meeting with any of the other foreign leaders, not with president morsi, not later this week, not returning to new york, says his schedule doesn't permit that. not meeting with benjamin netanyahu, he is going on "the view," the ladieies of the view have the president of the united states. that has caused a ruckus. >> i would say, no matter what jay carney just said from the podium there, i would guarantee you the president would like to have the phrase "bump in the road" back. i think understands that politically when talking ate the deaths not just of the ambassador but three other americans isn't going to be the best thing either politically or just a human perspective. i would say, though, i think it's easy to forget this, but i

would say this election will not be decided on foreign policy. this election will be decided on the economy, what you've seen in the last three or four weeks in national polling in the great state polling that nbc has been a part of. you've seen that advantage that mitt romney had on who is better able to handle the economy. you've seen it either shrink or disappear. he just cannot win this election unless he can build a real statistical advantage to say look, president obama hasn't gotten the job done, my background, my experience allows me to do so. i just think the more he talks about foreign policy means the less he gets back to selling people again on the economic argument which is absolutely critical to his channelses in 43 days. >> speaking of economic arguments. >> yeah. >> sorry about that. >> that's okay. >> speaking of economic arguments the taxes that came out on friday and what the west wing used to call take out the trash day, he puts out the tax day, summary of 20 years, 2011

taxes, 14.2%. this is the take from seth meyers on "weekend update." >> mitt romney on friday released his 2011 tax returns which showed he paid a 14% tax rate, so just a little less than what restaurants add on for parties of six or more. the 14% tax rate romney paid is less than the 20% paid by the average american. how did he pay such a low rate? he claimed 47% of americans as dependents. >> so the question is whether the tax issue is now going to go away. before we go on, chris, just hang on with me for a moment. >> sure. >> i want to bring in our friend who had a weekend to remember, by skype from l.a.x., mark halperin, senior political analyst for msnbc. and now an emmy award winner for hbo's hit ataptation of his book with john heilemann, "game change." joining us from skype from l.a.x. you're about to get on a plane

to head home. how did you get past tsa with that hardware? >> i want to make it clear because there's a little confusion. john and i are not actually recipients of the emmys. >> in our heart you are. >> we have no hardware. we got to pose with the hardware but we don't get to actually take any of it with us. >> but you get to celebrate and i'm wondering where is heilemann? is he, you know, lost at chateau? i mean where is john heilemann is this. >> it's not clear. i attached low jack to his leg before we separated but the signal somehow cut off, so not entirely clear where he is. but he was pretty happy last night both in the theater, the tension of waiting to see if the film would win awards and then afterwards, particularly back stage when we got to interact with the cast of "homeland" who won the best drama right after "game change" won. there was a little traffic jam back stage that was enjoyable.

>> very exciting for you. exciting for all of your friends here. congratulations. >> thank you, andrea. >> it started with "game change" and we have to wait for "game change two" and when you decide who you're casting in that you know who your friends are. >> thank you, andrea. appreciate it. >> thank you very much. and new york, of course, returning to education nation, new york has the nation's largest public school system serving more than 1 million students with an operating budget of nearly $20 billion. that is $20 billion reasons and 1 million reasons importantly why what happens here is watched across the country. joining me now, the man in charge of it, new york city schools chancellor dennis wolcott. >> good afternoon. >> thank you for having us in new york. >> isn't that fabulous. the new york public library. a great message to the schoolchildren. >> and what education nation has done to us is tremendous. >> my education started in the new york public schools? >> where? >> ps 105 in the bronx. >> in the bronx. >> you know we have 1750 schools

in new york city right now and we have opened up 600 new schools since the mayor has been in office. it's been an outstanding opportunity to offer choice to our parents and whether it's small schools, large schools, district schools, charter schools, single sect schools, we believe in choice and what the mayor has done has been tremendous opening up high quality schools for our parents and children shoe tell us about this initiative you and the mayor are announcing today which is early childhood education. >> we announced two things, one we're creating 4,000 new full day seats for pre-k, for 4-year-olds, an additional 4,000 seats and we're devoting roughly $20 million. announced a brand new initiative called edu care new york. a model across the country that's an outstanding model of engaging children from the time they are six weeks old to five years of age. so we'll be opening up an edu care site in brownsville, brooklyn and having parents and children from six weeks old to

five years old as a part of that. and then part of that also will be our edu care leadership institute training directors of day care centers and early childhood programs as well. >> is there any question at all that early education works, especially in neighborhoods where parents cannot help, don't have all the resources in inner cities in particular? >> research shows the earlier you get to our children as far as providing a solid foundation for education the better off they'll be in the long run and eliminating the achievement gap. our research shows that in new york city and with this initiative by going to brownsville and also with our pre-k initiative we're going to look at low income communities to make sure we have a major impact on those communities and level the playing field. >> let's talk about another issue which is controversial in many quarters which is the morning after pill and the fact that apparently for more than a year it has been available to young girls, as young as 13, without parental approval or with parental approval.

>> it's a pilot program. we've started it with five schools. expanded it to 13 schools this year and parents have an opt-out tradition. parents receive letters and have the ability to opt out for their child. roughly 2% of the parents, 1% or 2% have opted out. teenagers can go and be confidential around getting that type of access to the morning after pill. and what we've been able to do is show the importance of being really very aggressive as far as working with our students if they have a need to have that need available in these pilot schools, and again, our goal is to reduce the unwanted pregnancies that are taking place. >> 7,000 unwanted pregnancies by the time girls are 17. >> as you know from the research, i mean if you're having an unwanted pregnancy as a teenager you have a higher chance of living in poverty and our goal is to make sure our children are in school getting a quality education and the parents receive a letter and have the ability to opt out. >> and when we have this kind of program, how -- what are the counter veiling pressures?

hearing from religious leaders, getting push back. >> this is new york city so you hear from everyone. when we announced our comprehensive sex ed program last year, i met with a number of religious leaders including the upcoming cardinal at that particular point and the bishops of new york and other religious leaders. we explained it. we said we would be respectful of their viewpoints but we have a responsibility to our students and so again, we try to enter into dialog with all the appropriate constituent communities and we have a responsibility to really focus on our students. it's not about the adults. it's about our students. >> thank you so much. we're focusing on solutions on what works and it's -- dennis wolcott. >> it happens all the time. >> famous poet. >> i know. >> know bell -- >> i'm waiting for them to call derrick dennis one day and that will be my satisfaction. >> thank you very much. >> my pleasure. >> dennis wolcott, mr. chancellor, thank you for being here. >> thank you very much. >> up next from our summit here in new york, former secretary of state condoleezza rice on how failed schools are putting our

nation at risk. and still ahead, chelsea clinton is here on a novel approach for some public school students. this is "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc live from education nation. >> we have young people growing up in some places in this country that everything is really against them. they have terrible health care, violence. when you take a closer look... ...at the best schools in the world... ...you see they all have something very interesting in common. they have teachers... ...with a deeper knowledge of their subjects. as a result, their students achieve at a higher level. let's develop more stars in education. let's invest in our teachers... ...so they can inspire our students. let's solve this. syou know, i've helped a lot off people save a lot of money.

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education is not only a domestic challenge for domestic policymakers. according to a council on foreign relation study our nurse are a threat to our national security. former secretary of state condoleezza rice cochaired that study at our education nation summit earlier today and asked

dr. rice about this threat to america as a global power. >> well, it is a national security threat, the state of k-12 education in the united states first and foremost and most immediately because we find that even the ability to find people who can serve in the armed forces is being compromised. we learned in the task force some 70% of our young people are not fit for military service. a significant portion is because they can't pass the basic skills test to get into the military. secondly the issue of competitiveness for the united states. there are good jobs to be had. ceos will tell you that they would like to bring more production back to the united states, but finding basic skill levels that are appropriate to today's task our education system is failing there. but for me, as a child of birmingham, alabama, where education was the way out, the

most serious aspect of this is what it's doing to us to the social fabric of our country. we are quickly becoming two countries, one educated and one not. in a country where we're not held together by religion or ethnicity or nationality, but by a creed that you can come from humble circumstances and do great things, it really goes right at the core of who we are if people don't have an opportunity for good education. >> in fact, you wrote in the "financial times" this failure of education is the greatest single threat to national cohesion. what do you mean when you talk about national cohesion as the great equalizer? >> the united states has always been a place that you were not trapped in your circumstances of birth. class mattered less than your willingness to work hard and climb the ladder of success. there are so many stories, andrea, of people who started with nothing and ended up at the

top, some place in their story. there is always a teacher or a very good school experience and then the ability to go to college, to higher education, and then the the ability to succeed. when that ladder of success is not available, particularly to kids who are born into difficult circumstances, we really are threatening our national cohesion. we're threatening the ability of people to really believe that they can get to the top. >> at the same time, in this global economy, the study of the council on foreign elations that you co-chaired shows that roughly eight in ten americans speak only english. >> yes. >> and that fewer and fewer schools are teaching foreign languages. what are solutions to that? >> as secretary of state, i watched what this mono lin gal country we have means for finding people who can come into the foreign service. we're a great multi ethnic democracy. we really should look like the country when we go out as

foreign service officers and the like. finding people who can speak foreign languages who are capable of even studying abroad, it's more difficult if you're not acquiring foreign languages early. we know that the earlier you begin to acquire a foreign language the better you're going to be at speaking a foreign language and once you've acquired your first foreign language the second one is easier. so our schools do need to teach. but it's also something shocking for me, we tend to think of the education problem as one for lower income people and, indeed, that's the most devastating problem. but even our high-end schools, the child in singapore is learning in third grade what -- or in korea what our kids are learning in fifth grade. we're even behind in terms of the competitiveness with other industrialized countries for our best schools. >> and you alluded to this earlier, let's drill down a bit on the problems for our

military. you've got voluntary military and basic skills. >> yes. >> that is becoming a national security threat that we cannot recruit enough people with basic skills. >> able to pass a truly basic skills test. pete garen the former secretary of the army was a member of the task force and he talked about two ways in which this is hurting our military preparedness. there is the problem of just getting people who can serve in the armed forces and obviously the armed forces have been a way out of circumstances out of poverty and into the mainstream or out of obscurity into the main stream, ask colin powell about the military as a vehicle for upward mobility. but pete garn mentioned the fact that when our military people move around and go around the country, the variation in the levels of the schools is really a problem for the military family and then getting people to volunteer becomes a problem.

>> and just pair threatically as we talk about solutions in our summit i talk to ceos who now say for those who get into the military, they want to recruit because our military is training them in math and engineering and -- >> absolutely. >> the high-tech values they need to be the best. >> if you come out of the military you've got tremendous skills and we have the best military in the world. our volunteer armed forces are amazing. entry into them is very often entry into a much better station in life. >> we take terror warnings very seriously. obviously there are other national security threats. why isn't education taken as seriously as it needs to be by our leaders? >> well, we want it in this task force which i chaired with joel klein, former chancellor of the new york city schools, we wanted to change the the constituency mix if you will for education reform to bring people like

me -- i come out of education. i'm a former provost of stanford, but a lot hasn't really draesds this issue and so we had people like the former secretary of the army, we had special tests in international politics, we had ceos like craig barrerett who you'll see later,e wanted to understand the threat to our interests. it can be all too easy to say, i'll send my kid to a good school and what happens to that kid in east oakland or an costa doesn't matter. well actually it does matter, not only does it matter morally which we should be concerned about, but it does matter to our national security. by framing it in that way, it's not possible for someone to take care of our own kids and forget about the kids who are being left behind. >> rand did a study of 16 -- the ceos of 16 major corporations

global corporations, concerned that our universities, even the good ones, are not creating internationally educated citizens. >> even in our great universities, and i certainly teach in one, i think the level of writing skills of an lytic skills coming out of our schools is reason for concern. we believed in the task force report that some of the elements of the common core which is a disciplined or a curriculum that the national governance association really came up with, the idea that you have to be able to write based on text, to write based on fact, to be able to analyze, these are the sorts of skills that even our best students are not acquiring. >> speaking of the common core and some of the problems that we still face in some of the poorer communities, you grew up in birmingham in the segregated south and your stories in your book extraordinary, ordinary

people, about how your parents gave you the idea you could do anything, even though you couldn't go to a soda fountain. >> my parents had me believing -- you know, you can't have a hamburger at the woolworth's lunch counter but you can be president of the united states if you want to be. they were pretty persuasive. it wrote the book because my parents were extraordinary in very ways but order narey too. my mom was an education schoolteacher, my dad was a guidance counselors and minister on the weeks. that was the armor against prejudi prejudice, the vehicle for advancement. they had a saying, you will have to be twice as good, now that was a matter not for debate, it was a matter of fact from their point of view. i say to my students that's not a bad mantra for anybody that you have to be twice as good. but they meant you have had to

be twice as prepared educationally as anyone else. >> shawn rearden at stanford has a study showing that the achievement gap now between rich and poor, has doubled. and fact between black and white students. >> yes. >> this brand is widening. what are the solutions to that? >> the major issue, if you are a middle-class african-american kid or better, you're probably now going to do okay. so that's the good news. race is less dispositive than it once was. if you are poor and a minority, you're caught in the worst witch's brew that our country can produce. and when you look at what some of the schools are producing in places like washington, d.c., where michele reid was chancellor of the schools for a while and tried to change the mix, those kids are by third grade, unable to read, by fourth grade unable to read, by fifth grade. if you're unable to read at that

stage you're probably not going to read. that's, i think, the key to this achievement gap between rich and poor. >> at the same time, we focus on core curriculum, what about the other activities afterschool activities you've been involved in your foundation and working with the boys and girls club. you're a concert pianist. what opportunities do some of these kids have for art and music and physical education? you love football. >> yes. >> all of the things being just canceled in our inner city schools because of lack of funds? >> we want our kids to be competent in the core, to be able to read, write, do arithmetic and so forth. but a broad life, a life of accomplishment, is more than that. and it may well be that some of these things will have to be taken up by other institutions. i work with the boys and girls clubs because they are a marvelous place for kids to go and be safe.

we're trying to see if it can be more of a place that kids are safe and learning. perhaps many of the people here and i'm certain for you, andrea, because i know you are a violinist, the first chance you had to demonstrate you could stand up in front of an audience and do something was that first little recital. and maybe you were really nervous but you got through it and then you realized you could do that, what wonderful training in a school play or in a core russ or in a recital and the schools used to provide instrumental band for kids. now the non-profit that we started in northern california, now in its 18th year, have instrumental band and these kids in their uniforms learning to play an instrument, there is nothing more pride filling for them and parents. this was a very poor area of northern california. >> and very briefly, before i let you go, what do you want to hear from the candidates? are we hearing enough from both sides about education? >> we're not hearing enough. and i want to hear what are we

going to do to finally solve this problem. people are now aware. can we give people, parents, better choices? we can't leave kids in failing neighborhood schools. if they have to go to a charter school, get a voucher and go to a private school we have to get it done because we cannot afford to leave children behind. it goes to the core of who we are as americans. it is the civil rights issue of our time. >> and up next, the reading revolution with chelsea clinton. you're watching "andrea mitchell reports" live from the education nation summit only on msnbc. sure wish you guys would bring layaway back. actually... that way i could split my payments into little bite-size chunks. i mean you feel me right? yeah. uh, sir... ah... [ male announcer ] layaway's back. earlier than ever. through december 14th. walmart. [ male announcer ] layaway's back. earlier than ever. haters best get to bloggin' ♪ in it ♪

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nbc news special correspondent chelsea clinton has one stellar example. >> reporter: at veterans memorial school in central false, rhode island, a reading revolution is quietly under way. in kindergarten through second great grade public school teachers are working with charter teachers to turn around some of the lowest reading schools in the state. >> communicate with others. >> with one another. >> with one another. >> that's great. >> reporter: gone are the textbooks. kids choose what they want to read. class is twice as long, daily independent reading and one on one time with the teacher for every student, every week. kids use reading strategies to help their learning and comprehension. >> what's your favorite strategy? >> retailing. >> what's retailing? >> you tell the teacher the story again. >> reporter: when the program began three years ago, only 37%

of kids in kindergarten through second grade were reading at or above the national benchmark. by the end of the first school year 66% were. that's a 29-point jump in eight months. >> one of my students did mention that you didn't know anything about retailing. >> i didn't. i didn't. there were all sorts of things that were novel to me. >> reporter: what may be most pioneering is the uncommon partnership between public school teachers nancy, diane, cheryl, and their colleagues christine and jill, from the learning community charter school 347. >> sometimes public school teachers can perceive charters as a threat. a threat of resources, of taking resources, of taking personnel, taking jobs. that is not the kind of relationship that we have. >> what the message needs to get out that great things can be accomplished for the children. >> reporter: once wary of one another now the two teachers hope their partnership can be a lesson plan for school districts across the country.

>> and chelsea clinton is an nbc news special correspondent and joins me now. we should point out there are private charters and public charters. this was, in fact, a public charter. >> that's right. >> working with the public schools in this community. and the scores, the changes are just remarkable. >> it is remarkable. partly what is remarkable as well is the collaboration between the public charter school, the learning community, and then the surrounding public schools. when the first charter school was set up in minnesota in the early 1990s and when it became a national platform the theory was that in return for the privilege of experimenting in public charter schools, the charters would then have the responsibility to take what was working into their local communities. and that hasn't happened in a lot of places. but it's really happening here. and central falls is starting to see in the public schools also really radical increases in literacy in the early years. we ne how important that is. >> what is it about these teachers in this community that makes them work together rather than be wary of each other?

>> well, we know that it wasn't so easy the first year. but that it became pretty clear and we heard this over and over again from the public school teachers we talked to that the charter school it teachers like they were focused on their students and that they weren't trying to take over their jobs. they were trying to help them be the best teachers they could be and support them with the tools that they had seen work in their own classrooms. and i think that dynamic was really important. >> and chelsea, the differences between these two school settings, from the charter to the public, are they remarkably different in either class size or approaches? or is this a way of bringing best practices together in one place? >> i think it's really a way of bringing best practices together. one of the things that was recommend impressive about the charter school teachers, they were eager to learn from their public school colleagues as well what was working in their classrooms, what reading strategies were working with their kids as they try to take it to greater scale and then to

adapt when they heard that something was more effective in the public school than maybe what they first tried in the private school environment. >> is it so locally based, does it really rely on the individual teachers, principal or setting or can they be replicated. >> that's why education nation is so important, to shine the light on what's working and clearly the people who are at education nation across the street who are paying attention to the broadcast or following on-line, you really have the chance to hear about what's working elsewhere and to figure out whether or not that could work in their own environment. until we have a more structural solution, it has to be this teacher to teacher, parent to parent, even student to student learning and collaboration. >> it's really exciting. i loved you panel, by the way, people can follow that on-line. i was watching myself. >> thanks, andrea. >> thanks. good to have you here. >> up next live from our continuing focus on education nation, at our summit, the education secretary arne duncan on the challenges of institutes

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it's all that sweet ever needs to be. new nectresse. sweetness naturally. mitt romney said that president obama has chosen his side in this fight that you sided withes the unions and another time last spring he said he can't talk up reform while indulging in groups that block it. >> well, you know, i think governor romney and a number of folks try to politicize the issue and do a lot of teacher bashing. when i meet teachers all across the country they are so dedicated to their kids and what we tried to do is actually break through this left/right, conservative/liberal gridlock and that's what my key reform has been all about, race to the top. what we've said to school districts is, you've got to emphasize high accountability, high standards, make sure that

teachers know that we're going to be paying attention to the actual outcomes for kids, but we're also going to give more resources to schools doing the right thing, training teachers, providing them with professional development and support that they need. >> president obama with savannah guthrie on "today" and at our summit taped for our summit here in new york. the teachers strike in chicago only the latest example of friction but one of the worst in recent years. the city's first teacher strike in 25 years. that brought into sharp relief the tension between teacher unions and the obama administration reform proposals as well. joining me is the secretary of education arne duncan. this is a political issue in this campaign. i know you try to stay out of politics but the romney team and mitt romney himself, accusing the president of siding with teachers. that might come as a surprise to you since you've been under fire

from the teachers unions along the way as well. >> i think we should all be on the side of teachers. i think teachers are doing important work every day without enough resources, often without enough support. this is about how we get better together. stop playing politics, how we support teachers and principals to get better, parents step up and help them, challenge young people to get a good education all of vus a great deal of self-interest seeing america have a world-class public education system. >> what is your take away from the strike in chicago? rahm' moon all in took a hardline, praised by mayor bloomberg the other day, and at the same time the teachers got a pretty healthy raise but they had to make concessions as well. we hear there is a huge challenge for the pension system. for the teachers in chicago. >> i think they got to a great place. may have been difficult getting there. but a deal that at the end of the day respected teachers, valued them as a true professionals they are, helps drive education reform forward.

great for children, great for education and great for the city. i give andrea both sides credit for despite the difficult conversations getting to the right outcome. >> but couldn't they have gotten to that outcome without striking. many people say you have a city where so many kids are challenged, where more than 90% of the kids require the meals from school, families working families who don't have day care, why can't they negotiate and not strike before they settle these things. >> it was a difficult journey to get there. what you see around the country is what i call tough minded collaboration, union and management coming together to create great public schools and make sure every school is a school of choice. adults have to continue to work together to find common ground and make sure children get the great education they need and deserve in. >> in our teacher's town hall, some of the teachers were very outspoken about how they feel pressured. let's watch. >> we are not just their teachers. we are their confidents,

friends, we're their surrogate parents and our role has gotten larger and larger as days go by and how are we evaluated on how good we make a child feel about themselves and positive they feel about that door. i can't be evaluated on that. >> teachers feel threatened by these evaluations, unfair, too subjective and doesn't take into account what they do in the classroom one on one and personal connections to the children. >> that's hugely important, what great teaching is about. what any meaningful evaluation has multiple measures. you have to look at a range of things. are students improving. what do your peers say about you. how does the principal think you're doing. asking students. historically, for decades, teacher evaluation is meaningless. didn't award amazing teachers who need to be leading professional development, mentors, didn't support those in the middle and didn't move out those in the bottom where it wasn't working. multiple measures i think is the

right way to go. important to do this with teacher and teacher unions where this imposed top down will not work. hundreds and hundreds of districts folks have come together and figured this out. that's when you have a real chance for long-term success. >> interview with condoleezza rice earlier today and she pointed out the crisis for our volunteer military in that so many do not have basic skills. what can we do to have people be, you know, able to be recruited so that they can serve in our military because this is becoming a national security crisis. >> not only a national security crisis, i think the link between strong public education, strong economy, those two things are inextricably linked. we have to have high standards, reduce dropout rates, make sure every graduate is college and career ready. a lot of hard work ahead of us but the amount of courage and criteria we're seeing gives me

great hope for where we can go as a country. >> at the same time we face the fiscal cliff and automatic spending cut the and with all the focus on defense and avoiding taxes from the republican side, what is going to happen to public education if it all comes out of domestic -- >> there's a clear choice and we are going to continue to invest in education at every level, early childhood education, k to 12 reform, making college more accessible and affordable or going to cut. we see education's expense. president obama and i think education is the best investment we can make in our young people, communities and country. not everyone in congress, particularly, you know, congressman ryan's budget, they think in tough economic times we can walk away from our commitment to education. i fundamentally reject that. >> arne duncan, thank you very much, mr. secretary. >> thanks. >> thanks for being part of the summit. >> guess who else is in town and what he said today? this is "andrea mitchell reports" only on msnbc. and i had a heart attack right out of the clear blue...

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topping the headlines ritd now on "andrea mitchell reports." at a breakfast meeting new yorker editor david remick asked mahmoud ahmadinejad about rushdy who spent a decade in i'ding and wrote a memoir about that experience. from >> translator: if he was in the united states, you shouldn't broadcast it for his own safety. >> in addition to that threatening comment about salmon rushdie, ahmadinejad addresses the united nations assembly on

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we've got to think long term. we've got to think long term. ♪ chris is back with us. we're talking about the president at the united nations addressing the u.n. and here you've heard from ahmadinejad with outrageous comments about israel. so things are heating up here in new york city. >> you're in the place to be, andrea. tomorrow the president speaks to the u.n. general assembly. i think the president wants to be in and out and not have news made and not doing bilaterals with world leaders. i think he wants this to be a no news event and get back on the campaign trail talking about the economy. >> that does it for us for in

special edition of "andrea mitchell reports." tomorrow on the show my exclusive interview with christine la guard. to learn more about the education stories this hour, check out our website. my colleague tamron hall has a look at what's next on "news nation." >> great hour. next hour we have excerpts from a brand-new interview peter a x alexander conducted with mitt romney where romney predicts a victory. >> do you believe that president obama was not deepedly saddened by the loss of four american lives in libya, speaking about policy in that region and not about the loss of lives that took place there at the consulate embassy. >> when the president was speaking about bumps in the road, he was talking about developments in the middle east. these fellas used capital one venture miles for a golf getaway. double miles you can actually use... but mr. single miles can't join his friends because he's getting hit with blackouts.

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